Summer Family Fun

At the end of August, Claire and Natalie's Oma and Opa came to visit.  Emile's aunt and uncle from the Netherlands, Anneke and Norbert, came with them.  The first time they got to meet the girls and see where we live.  The girls spent a lot of time playing with everyone.  We also went to the Capital building in downtown Raleigh and took Natalie to Build a Bear for the first time.  She picked out a bunny, which Anneke helped to name "Trudy".



Claire had a few other big moments recently too.  Right before Oma and Opa got here, Claire started pulling up on furniture.  She's all over the place now.  She's even starting to cruise some on furniture although not a lot yet.  Now that she is so mobile, she is determined to get to what she wants even if she has to climb over us and toys to get to what she wants.  And anything Natalie is playing with is what Claire wants to be playing with to.  I hear a lot of "No Baby Care, that's my toy" from Natalie right now.  But Natalie is doing a great job of sharing with Claire.

Claire also started eating table food while Oma and Opa were in town.  She's now eating a lot of dishes that Emile makes.  Her table foods were peas and bananas, and her first meal was curry chicken.  She loves the spices in Emile's cooking.  She likes to store food though in her chunky cheeks :). 

We finally took the girls to Falls Lake to play at the beach and go swimming.  It was the first time Claire was in the Lake.  Both girls had a blast.  Natalie loved jumping and splashing in the water. It's too bad we didn't get there until the end of the summer but it has been so hot, that even sitting at the beach would have been too hot!

Claire is 9 months old!

I took Claire in today for her 9 mo. appointment.  Dr. Loibissio said she's doing great; right where she should be for her age.  Still hard to believe she's 9 months old today.  She now weighs 20 lb. 3.5 oz. and is down to the 75th percentile.  I figured she was probably trimming down given how she doesn't sit still for more than 5 seconds now!  She is constantly on the move between crawling and standing.  She's now 27.5" long (50th percentile) and her head is in the 70th percentile.  She got her last Hep. B shot today; she was a trooper and only cried for a few seconds.  Overall she's doing great. 

Family Videos

I finally got a chance to upload a number of videos from when the girls and I visited WI.  Plus, I get to show you Claire crawling!  In the last few weeks she's become so fast compared to these first few crawls!  The cats now have to run from her.





The girls spent time with Nana and Grandpa at Kids Cove, the Racine Fountain/Sprayground and the beach.











And of course it's always cute to see others make funny noises to get Claire to eat.





Grandpa and Nana also took the girls and their cousin Hayden to the Racine Zoo.  Sounds like they had a lot of fun.  Natalie still talks about going to the zoo with Nana and Grandpa.